Ukraine’s Culture Ministry will hold a meeting on Aug 14 with all publishers affected by Russian shelling, Ukrainian Book Institute (UBI) head Oleksandra Koval said.
"Tomorrow, Friday, the Culture Ministry is holding a large meeting of all affected publishers. There they will talk about their losses and prospects," Koval said on a national telethon on Thursday.
The destruction of the KnyhoLend distribution warehouse poses the greatest threat, as it affects the work of many Ukrainian publishers, she said.
"We need to look at how much each has lost. If it’s within 2-5% of total volume, that’s recoverable; if it’s more than 10% to 30%, that could threaten publishers by slowing their recovery or preventing it altogether," Koval said.
As previously reported, Prime Minister Serhiy Koretsky instructed the Culture Ministry and Finance Ministry on July 27 to prepare a mechanism for state support of the book publishing industry.
Publishers, booksellers and the industry association are counting on state support to compensate for losses caused by Russian shelling. Publishers are also calling on the state to introduce preferential lending and insurance for inventory against war risks, as well as to launch programs to stimulate demand for books and replenish libraries.
Following a Russian strike that damaged publishing houses and printing facilities, Koval said 150-200 million UAH needs to be allocated to restore a lost million books.
A Russian attack overnight on July 19 destroyed the Knyholav publishing house’s warehouse, resulting in the loss of 250,000 books. The MISON publishing house was also destroyed and the Ark.Ua publishing house’s office in Kyiv was damaged. In addition, a printing facility belonging to the Konvi group was destroyed, with almost 250,000 textbooks and 350,000 blanks for publishing products lost.
A Russian strike on Kharkiv on Aug 1 damaged warehouses belonging to the Ranok publishing house, which stored products for the KnyhoLend, Fabula-Knyhomania, READBERRY, Korali Books and Ranok networks. Textbooks were reported to have burned in the fire.
A Russian strike overnight on Aug 5 on the Denka Logistics center destroyed more than 100,000 books belonging to the BookChef publishing house.
